Peregrine Falcons first nested on Derby's Cathedral, England, in 2006. Our Peregrine Project is now run by a partnership between Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, Derby City Council, Derby Cathedral and the Cathedral Quarter. Here is what's happening in 2015. . .

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Sunday, 8 May 2011

Hatching time is approaching!

STOP PRESS: It appears our first chick hatched around 2am this morning (9th May). Well done Green Class at Brigg Infants School for telling us what you saw.

Inside the Ringing Chamber at Derby Cathedral

Interest in our cameras and blog is mounting now that hatching date is approaching, Despite my sudden departure from Derby Museum at the end of March (and a number of kind comments from some of you about my "demise"), I have nevertheless still been active within the Project. But incubation is always a quiet time, and there has been little to report upon, which has proved somewhat useful for me at this challenging time. But visitor interest is only set to increase now, assuming that at least one of our four beautiful eggs do indeed hatch (around May 9th-10th, we think).

I had an opportunity to go up into Derby on Friday, so I called in to the Cathedral and went up to the ringing chamber to check our equipment. It was lucky I did, as one of our DVD recorders had recently frozen up and stopped recording. Having restarted them, I went through the remaining six-hour chunks of recordings that had been made and found a couple of interesting clips which I thought were worth sharing here.

The first was a lovely change over (dare I say, eggs-change?) between the female and the male, around 7.30am on May 3rd. The low, raking sunlight really highlights the shallow depression, or scrape, that the birds make for their nest, and you can really get a feel for the difference in size between the larger female (falcon) and the much smaller male (known as a tiercel)

The second clip shows a lovely sequence with our adult male arriving with food. You can just hear him calling very faintly in the distance as he flies in with prey. He continues calling from the tower top, and the adult female responds to him. She sounds so much louder because she is incubating four eggs on a nest platform on which our microphone is located, and it picks her up so much more clearly . After a few moments she flies up to take the food item from him, flies briefly around the tower and then returns to a favoured point to start the process of plucking and feeding.

For those wondering about my future involvement with the Peregrine Project, I can only say that the project partners met last week to discuss how we take things forward this season. My former colleagues at Derby Museum are also working on getting permission for me to continue accessing the City Council's VPN (virtual private network) which for the last four years has allowed me to zoom the cameras in and out, listen for activity and remotely restart the equipment or to switch camera feeds. Whether I get new passwords to access that network before the eggs hatch our remains to be seen. It'll be touch and go, I fear.

But rest assured that we'll do all we can to maintain the same level of activity and involvement which brings so many of you in to watch and read about Derby's famous peregrines, or to visit Derby for yourselves. In fact, we hope we can find ways to enhance things in the year ahead. We're always keen to listen to viewers suggestions, too. Just leave us a comment on this blog with your ideas.

It would be an absolute travesty if Nick were to be denied access after all his dedication to this project. I'll hold my tongue at this point but I hope those in power are taking note of the feelings of bloggers here.

Someone in Derby needs to step up to the plate. And no, I don't know Nick other than via this blog, like most of us.

Nick,it is good to hear that you have been able to access the Cathedral and have delighted us all by posting the wonderful videos! Thank you so much! I do hope you are able and willing to continue with this project. I can echo Terry, Herts UK post @ 14:46.

I have been very quiet lately but am still watching. I have three nests in my garden, two tree sparrow nests both in boxes both with chicks and more recently a Blackbird nest in my hedge which had its first egg laid today! I am recording all the nests with the BTO. That makes it very busy for me but I will not miss out on our peregrines!

Great to hear from you Nick and to see the great videos you have put on. Hope everything works out well for you.I was wondering if there will be any tours up to the top of the tower coming up?Looking forward to an exciting week when we get our first hatchings.

Thanks for everyone's kind comments.Phoebe asked a really interesting question about whether the male is ever on the eggs at hatching time.We've never seen it here, and I can find no reference to it in Derek Ratcliffe's bible on "The Peregrine Falcon", and I would doubt it happens under normal circumstances where both adults are fit and active.

We get a lot of warning before the eggs hatch, with the egg first starring and then "pipping" - ie a small hole appears and the chick can sometimes be heard from within the egg. I think it can be over 48 hours between pipping being seen and hatching occurring. So the female would have plenty of warning that eggs are about to hatch - and she stays pretty firmly on the nest at that time and any advances from the smaller male smply get ignored.

I'm really looking forward to being able to zoom in the cameras again - hopefully in time to see that pipping. if you want to see what this looks like, go to our archive link on the left side of this blog and navigate to a blog post for 4 May 2008, titled "First hatch".A functional link to Froona's blog is given at the bottom of that post, which explains how the hatching process works in greater detail. Sadly, Froona from Holland is no longer with us, but her blog still stands as a testament to her enthusiasm for all things peregrinaceous. (Not sure if that's a real word).

Brilliant! we have our first chick!! Mr P. just arrived with a small offering for Mrs. P. which she took from him and flew away with leaving our first view of the newly hatched chick... I watched 20 mins or so earlier as she reached below her and threw to one side the empty shell! How eggciting :)

Morning been watching the camera for about 10 minutes and only just noticed what looks like eggshell on the back of the scrape, did we have a hatch last night. I don't recall seeing it there last night.

We think a chick has hatched because we have seen some egg shell. but we can't see the chick and the peregrine is still sitting on the eggs.She keeps looking under her self. We think that the chick is under the peregrine. We are getting relly exsitered!

A little bit more from last night: At around 01.35, give or take, I think I remember seeing a bit of debris flicked out from under the male, who was incubating at the time (I think!). In hindsight I suspect that was a piece of eggshell. At around 01.50 there was a changeover, and the eggs were uncovered. I was idly watching when I realised one of the eggs ‘wasn’t round’ and then it moved! Before I had a chance to get a screen grab, the female (I think) was back on top.

So, in reference to Nick’s post yesterday, I’m fairly sure it was the male who was present when the first hatching took place, but a review of that changeover around 01.50 should confirm.

Two babies have hatched! At about 1:58 p.m. your time the male and female swapped the duty, two little faces looking up at mom and dad!Nick M., wonderful to hear from you, and thanks for the lovely videos.

We saw that two chicks had hatched! They were little and fluffy. they was opening there beaks because they wanted feeding. We were very excited to see them. We were jumping up and down. And we was shouting and skweling! we hope the other eggs hatch.